More and more pregnant Californians are spearheading their own labor and delivery plans by designing prenatal, birthing, and postnatal goals with their chosen team of experts. For many, birthing-plan considerations include multiple choices, from an intimate home birth to a fully scheduled hospital delivery—and everything in between. But for women living in the state’s rural areas, access to more than a handful of options is rare. In “Chop Wood. Start Fire. Have Baby.,” Alta Journal contributor Kailyn McCord details the twists and turns (literal and figurative) she and many of her Mendocino County neighbors face when planning to give birth. McCord joins Alta Live to explain why families in regions like hers have lost many of the pregnancy care options they once had, discuss the roles of freedom and agency in the birthing process, and reveal just how close she came to having a baby on the very remote Highway 20. You don’t want to miss this conversation on the ways some of the next generations of Californians are entering the world.
About the guest:
Kailyn McCord writes on the North Coast of California, with recent support from the Ucross Foundation and the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference. You can find her work at Literary Hub, Ploughshares, and The Masters Review, with more at her website. She’s on Instagram @kkmcwhere. When not writing, she likes to be outside.•
